NEW YORK – Jurors on Monday heard a Florida doctor pledging his support to an FBI agent posing as an al-Qaeda recruiter in tapes made secretly as part of a terrorism investigation.

The oath occurred in a Bronx apartment as FBI Agent Ali Soufan sought to learn whether the doctor, Rafiq Abdus Sabir, was serious about wanting to help the organization led by Osama bin Laden, the agent testified.

Soufan told the jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that he was on his knees as he delivered the oath in Arabic and English to Sabir and his close friend, musician and martial arts expert Tarik Shah.

After each man individually pledged his allegiance to the organization, Soufan clasped hands with each man, he testified.

On the tape, Sabir could be heard just before Soufan administered the oath saying that he understood the “deepest significance of it. ... I ask for it. So uh, being that I ask for it, we have a saying, be careful what you have ask for because you just might get it.”

With that, Sabir can be heard laughing as he adds: “So I cannot, I cannot complain for what I ask for.”

In Sabir's defense, lawyer Ed Wilford called a Middle East studies expert who explained to jurors that someone who pledges an oath to an organization or individual can later back out of the pledge if he is asked to do something sinful.

Wilford has said there is little evidence related to his client in the case that began with a government probe soon after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Wilford has called Shah “a nut,” saying the government wanted to overcome a lack of evidence against Sabir by showing the jury heavy evidence against someone he knew, Shah, and by linking al-Qaeda to multiple terrorist attacks.

The testimony by Soufan and the tape of the Bronx meeting was a critical part of the case against Sabir, who was not on many other audio tapes made in the FBI sting operation that also resulted in charges against Shah as well as a Washington D.C. cab driver and a Brooklyn bookstore owner.

Several weeks ago, Shah pleaded guilty to charges that could bring him 15 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year. The other two defendants also have pleaded guilty to charges, leaving Sabir alone at the defense table. He faces 30 years in prison if he is convicted.